About 30 of Select Energy's retail employees, mostly sales representatives, were offered jobs with Hess, NU spokeswoman Mary Jo Keating said. But about 100 people, including sales and support staff, will lose their jobs after an unspecified period of ``transitional'' employment.

``Their jobs have gone away,'' Keating said.

A spokesman for Hess, Jim Allen, refused to discuss the status of the former Select Energy employees.

Select Energy, one of several NU subsidiaries to use a version of the name, sold electric power, mainly to corporate clients.

Last year, NU said it would sell its competitive businesses, including wholesale marketing and energy service units and its unregulated power generation and retail marketing operations. The competitive business units produced losses of nearly $130 million in last year's third quarter alone. The company plans to focus on its regulated utilities, including Connecticut Light & Power. CL&P distributes electricity to more than 1 million customers in the state.

NU recorded a $44 million loss on the sale of Select Energy to Hess, Keating said.

In May, when NU sold another subsidiary, Select Energy Services Inc., to Ameresco Inc. of Framingham, Mass., 25 employees were laid off.

The retail business most recently sold to Hess, as well as most of its employees, was based in Berlin, Keating said. Some employees lived out of state, but reported to the Berlin office. Another 20 employees were based at a wholly owned Select Energy subsidiary in Syracuse, N.Y., she said.

An unspecified number of employees chose not to accept transitional assignments or declined full-time jobs with Hess, Keating said.

Select Energy employees who were not offered jobs with Hess will receive three months of severance pay, plus six months of paid insurance premiums after the transitional jobs end, Keating said.

Daniel Lynch, a Select Energy sales representative who declined a job offer from Hess, said he believes that NU pressured some Select Energy employees into taking jobs with Hess. NU told Select Energy's sales representatives that they would not receive earned commissions if they declined a comparable job with Hess, according to Lynch.

An internal memo Lynch provided, dated May 4, states: ``If you are offered comparable employment with Hess and decline the offer, all commissions [as well as severance benefits] will be forfeited.''

Lynch, who lives in Delaware, thinks a Connecticut state law that took effect last year entitles him and others to commissions on contracts they sold that are still in effect. The law, adopted last July, says employers must pay sales representatives ``all commissions that are due on or before the effective date of such termination ... and that are due after the effective day of such termination ... ''

Lynch said he has not decided whether to hire a lawyer to press for commissions.

Keating said the salesmen would receive all commissions they had earned by the time of termination. She rejected Lynch's assertion that commissions must be paid for the entire duration of a contract's term.

``You get the money that you have earned at the point of termination,'' she said.